DETROIT— Passionate about Detroit and its potential, Michael Bolton is making a documentary
about the city.

“We are in love with the people we have met in Detroit,” the Grammy-winning singer said. “It’s
literally turned into a lovefest.”

During the past four decades, Bolton has sold more than 50 million albums and singles worldwide.
His lengthy career has spanned the sincerity of chart-topping ballads such as
Love Is a Wonderful Thing and the self-parody of his guest role as Capt. Jack Sparrow in a
well-known
Saturday Night Live digital short.

But the crooner, 60, doesn’t want to talk about his hits. He would rather focus on the
documentary that he hopes will spread the message that Detroit is poised for a comeback.

Bolton’s project arose from his 2013 album,
Ain’t No Mountain High Enough: A Tribute to Hitsville, U.S.A. A love letter to Motown
music, it contains classics from the Detroit-grown empire such as
Tracks of My Tears and
Nowhere To Run.

“All the feel-good the country needed was coming out of Detroit,” he said of the era.

Bolton and his production company had planned to make a video about Hitsville U.S.A. But after
getting permission to shoot at the city’s Motown Museum, they began getting phone calls “about this
building that’s going on in the center of Detroit and a guy named Dan Gilbert and Quicken
Loans."

The focus shifted to the entire city as he and his team became captivated with Gilbert’s plans
to revive the downtown and spread the progress outward.